Have You Heard About... Kill Me Softly

… the people blessed (and cursed) by fairies? Kill Me Softly, by Sarah Cross, tells the story of Mirabelle, raised by her godmothers because her parents were killed when she was an infant. As her sixteenth birthday approaches, Mira becomes increasingly obsessed with her parents’ death and the town where she was born. She plots to go there without her godmothers’ knowledge, needing to find answers about her heritage. However, what she finds will endanger her life and change everything she thought she knew about herself and the world around her.

Ms Cross creates an intriguing world where some people catch the attention of fairies. They become fated to play out roles from various folktales — one girl lives with her stepmother, wondering when the woman will decide she is too beautiful and must be killed, a charming young man waits for the day when he will meet (and save) his princess, and the brothers with blue hair cannot be trusted by the women they love. The stories are varied, although they generally have European roots. More interesting is the question of how much free will an individual has to affect his or her personal version of a traditional role. The reader learns everything along with Mira, who is in more danger than her peers, due to her ignorance, but also has the opportunity to make her own fate.